Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Denmark's Lust for Youth have a new album of New Order and Depeche Mode inspired synth pop heading our way this summer. Check out "Great Concerns" below and pre-order the upcoming self-titled album here from Sacred Bones.

Massachusetts band Constant Smiles have been making quirky, lo-fi rock and pop for a couple of years, and new album embraces a kind of psychedelic, darkwave, lo-fi shoegaze thing this time around. It's damn good too. Listen to "Endless Water" below and pay what you want for new album "John Waters" here from the band.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Philly's noisy art rock band Empath are set to release their debut full length "Active Listening: Night on Earth" in a couple of weeks, and coming off a successful run through SXSW, they've shard their newest single from said album," Hanging Out of Cars." Listen below and get the album from Get Better Records.

New Jersey's Dead Swords combine elements of shogaze and doom metal, and the end result is marvelous, a dark and moody bombast of reverb and riffage. Listen to "Black" below and download the new "Enders" album here from the band. Also, keep an eye out for a vinyl release hopefully sometime soon on Human Blood Records.

Working with Brian Eno and others, Serbian experimental artist Abul Mogard just released a new album, "And We Are Passing Through Silently," in which he transforms and mixes the work of a handful of other artists into something completely different. A highlight for me is the stretched and sprawling mix of Penelope Trappes' "Carry Me." In Mogard's hands, the song becomes a slow crawling piece of droning ambience that stretches to the ends of the cosmos and back again. Listen below and get the record here from Houndstooth.

Saudade is a supergroup of sorts featuring a rotating cast of artists and musicians from Deftones, Bad Brains, Dillinger Escape Plan, Cro-Mags, Team Sleep, and Medeski, Martin, & Wood. New song "Shadows & Light" features a duet between The Deftones' Chino Moreno and goth chanteuse Chelsea Wolfe. It's moody and ethereal and heavy. Here's hoping we get some more music from these guys and girls soon. Listen below.

I've apparently been sleeping on the collaborative release from Karen O and Danger Mouse, the lush and gorgeous "Lux Prima." The title track actually came out last November, but i'm only hearing it for the first time now, a 9-minute epic with multiple parts that's cinematic and grooving and pretty damn awesome. Listen to it below and get the record from BMG.

I am not too proud to admit that i can dig on some bubblegum pop music from Carly Rae Jepsen. And you should too. Anyway, the pop artist just released a couple of new tunes, one of which, "Now That I Found You," has an accompanying video in which the "You" from the title is Ms. Jepsen's cat. I can get behind that. Watch the video below, and probably be on the lookout for a new album sometime this year.

So, apparently aside from working on a new album, Grimes is also writing a musical, or something akin. Check out the slinky pop of the demo for "Pretty Dark" below. As far as i know, it's not about workers' unions.

I love the wave of releases we seem to have gotten over the last decade compiling lost and forgotten music from around the world of literally any and every genre: Italian disco, Irish post-punk, Thai psych, etc. And here we have the "Teutonik Disaster" comp, a mix of new wave and funk from Germany, 1978-1984, featuring new mixing and edits from Munk and Kapote. This is hip stuff, and i always love to hear how different musical styles translate around the world. Check out Die Chefs' "Frauenkorper" below and download the album here from Toy Tonics.

Love it, hate it, or just think it's goofy, disco music hit hard and fast and seeped into the culture, its reverberations still being felt in popular music. And for me, the very best was the stuff that had Giorgio Moroder's finger prints all over it, hence Donna Summer's "I Feel Love," our Daily Jam.

Monday, March 18, 2019

Feeling a little goofy and a little dancey today, so here's some bouncing post-disco electronic funk from BarbWalters. "BBROWN" features a Bobby Brown sample and makes me want to groove at a ridiculous party with ridiculous people. Listen below and get the "Pleasure" cassette here from Business Casual.

A friend recently reminded me of this song, noting that i had written about it on the blog years ago, and that it always reminded him of me now. I can get behind that kind of endorsement. Featured on the 2011 mixtape "Fear and Loathing in HuntsVegas," Diplo's remix of the Paper Route Gangstaz track "Bama Gettin Money" features a Wham! sample and some southern ghetto verses. I fucking love it. Listen below, your Daily Jam...

Sunday, March 17, 2019

One last day to squeeze some stuff in. We left the boys with my mom and sister and their cousins and hit up the Big Easy Bar and Grill for some final SXSW goodies, seeing sets from Gong Gong Gong, David Boring, and Cindy Cane. I also had some crawfish which made me about as happy as anything else could this week. It's been real SXSW. I'm gonna attempt to do a real write-up in the next couple of weeks to be published...somewhere...hopefully, and god willing, i'll be back again next year. Here are my last pics...

Every year, i end up discovering a whole bunch of old songs, sometime obscure ones, that rank right up there with any of the new stuff i'm excited about. So far, this year, folk/pop artist Bill Fay's 1970 B-side "Screams in the Ears" is my absolute fave. Check it out, your Daily Jam...

Saturday, March 16, 2019

With kids, it's a lot harder to catch most of the Saturday parties during SXSW, as i generally have to scour the area for family friendly events. Today, the fine folks at Lazarus Brewing were up to the task, and i was able to coerce the boys into going for a short while. Brighton, England band THYLA were there, and while i don't know if my boys were impressed, i was taken with the band's particular brand of dramatic pop rock. Listen to "Only Ever" below and be on the lookout for the band's "What's On Your Mind" LP on REX Records.

Was not able to get out to see too much today, as has become the norm since becoming a father of two. And without the usual Waterloo day party going on today, i went to a little kid's birthday party instead. But then, we made it out to Lazarus Brewing again whose lineups for their day parties this year have been surprisingly good. Today i caught sets from Japan's DYGL and England's THYLA. Good stuff, and maybe more importantly, good beer. Check some pics below. I've got one more day to see some stuff tomorrow, and then it's all over...

It took 11 years between Portishead's second and third album...which means we're about due for a fourth right? Anyway, here's "The Rip," a haunting and mysterious song that became one of the band's instant staples, your Daily Jam.

Friday, March 15, 2019

Today started off with some bullshit revolving around a child's car seat and my inability to remove it from a car. It kind of dampened my spirits for much of the day (along with all of the horrible, heartbreaking news coming out of New Zealand), but i still got to see some great music today, this time jumping around from Hotel Vegas to Kitty Cohen's to Waterloo Records. I could have wandered all over for the rest of the day, but my feet were tired...because i'm old. Here's some pics...

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Japanese garage rock back DYGL (or Dayglo) released a new single earlier this year full of earworm guitar riffs and singalong choruses. Watch the video for "A Paper Dream" below and visit the band here.

Here's a little soulful, psychedelic garage rock from The Mystery Lights. New album "Too Much Tension!" drops in May on Daptone (pre-order here), but you should listen to "Someone Else Is in Control" below.

Today, my wife actually got to come out and meet me for a little while. We started at Lazarus Brewing, for a very chill and relaxed day party with some excellent craft beers and a great set by Madrid's Yawners. After that, we headed to Hotel Vegas for Levitation's party and an absolutely blistering, ripping set from Amyl and The Sniffers. Some other highlights were Jess Williamson's gorgeous cover of Dwight Yoakum's "Thousand Miles From Nowhere" and bumping sets from CHAI and KOKOKO! Here's some pics...